12/13/2011

Had this boss once. Virtually on my first week, this guy asks me to ask a personal friend to place (permanently mind) company equipment in his house. Not for storage you understand but for live data collection. This friend would have to agree to not only have this equipment in his house, collecting and sending data to our company but also if the equipment broke down or needed rebooting this friend would have to take care of it.

1. PERSONAL LIFE - heard of it?

2. MONEY - compensation, never heard of that either.

So, I explain that this is a highly unusual request and frankly I'm not sure my friend will agree. My boss replies that if I can't persuade him , he will think there is something very wrong about me.

04/03/2011

Burn baby burn. A self indulgent series of thought experiemnts. The idea of which is to open the eyes to the bigotry inherent in each of us.

Thought Experiment 1: Die Mark Twain, Die!

I hold a mock trial in which I accuse Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn of effectively killing serious American Literature for 100 hundred years. Afterwards I burn a copy of the book. What would happen? Hate mail from irate fans? A lawyers letter? Would I be an asshole? Should I die for my "belief"? Should anyone else?

Thought Experiment 2: Shrodingers cats religion

I place a kerosene covered copy of the Koran in a metal box. I place a kerosene covered copy of the bible in another, identical metal box. On the internet I hold a mock trial of religion and at the end , I drop a match into one of the boxes randomly (ie so I dont know which book I have burned). Neither does anyone else know. I never open the second box to find out.

Should I be killed? Should others? Am I an asshole? What happens next?

Thought Experiment 3: Equality is a good thing right?

I take one of every religious book in the world (Koran, Bible, Talmud, Torah, Avesta, Adi Granth, Visuddimagga, I ching, Gleanings of the Writings of Bahaullah, The Analects, The Vedas .. etc.). I cover them in petrol, hold a mock trial and burn ALL of them, naming no one religion or creed as any better or worse than another. I have burned a complete collection - nothing missed out.

Lets say that a number of radicals from a number of religions wish me dead. Who has priority? I can only be killed once? Whose book is more sacred? Who has more right? Does anyone? Am I an asshole? Should others be killed?

Last Thought Experiment (4): Koran by Pieces

A number of people decide to disrespect the Koran by varying amounts.Each one performs a different action and each action is performed by exactly one person.

Burn the book

Spit on the book

Lock the book in a metal box and bury it

Tear one page from the book

Tear one page and use as toilet paper

Tear half the pages

Tear all the pages

Use the book to prop open a door

Put the book on a shelf and look shiftily at it once a day

Publish a scholarly criticism of the book

Allow a child to draw pictures in the book

Deliberately spill coffee on the book

Which deserves death? Who are the assholes? Should riots ensue from any of these? Which?

03/12/2011

My boss tells me a story of a man at a trade show. He lost it. On the noisy tradeshow floor he pulled up a chair, stood on it and shouted at the top of his voice "I'm PROUD to be a vendor." He received a loud round of applause and some whooping cheers.

The consequences for the people involved in the suppliers company are often dramatic. Tons of work for no reason is quite normal. Weekend work and holiday work (I've now missed every Easter break since I joined my current company). There is probably no real deal behind any of these, its quite common customers think they can gather information by getting you to fill in 100s of pages of questions - just to gather information for them. Abuse in other words.

Its demoralising too, even depressing. Naturally a sales enquiry for a million or more is treated with excitement. Teams pull together, people create demos, often in their own time, long late nights of developing just the right slide set, travel, meetings and so on. timescales are often too tight, hence all the late night work. Then, if lucky, you face the customer. They nod politely for a couple of hours during your presentation, then four weeks tell you- you lost, thank you.

Sometimes its a plain - thankyou, we are not taking your calls. Other times the thank you is missing.

No information is ever given, no true comments. Often clear excuses are used - either so vague to be impossibly unhelpful or so trivial that its unbelieveable that this was the reason - more of an excuse).

I've had colleagues leave this side of the industry due to the abuse and switch sides just to be treated with a tiny amount of respect again.

Today I'm tired and depressed. Vendor abuse has got the better of me for the first time. A potential client has supplied trivial excuses to my employer as to why we lost the last bid some of which point right at the people involved. Fine, we all screw up - its hard but we do. Only, the reasons are so trivial (imagine things like "Your presenter did not speak Swahili" or "We did not like the colour of your tie") that they are both obviously excuses and a direct attempt to undermine the people involved.

With a night of little sleep, I turn to my blogotherapy to dump this off my mind.

If you are in the game of abusing your vendors and a joke and a sly smile to your colleagues, listen up.

"I am PROUD to be a vendor."

Without me and others like me, you would have no technology and NO BUSINESS.

10/02/2010

You know the story, you find one film scary, the person next to you, finds the whole thing hilarious and even confusing that you are scared. A recent blog post (found here) commented :

'Further, "Paranormal" isn't a bad movie, but the fact that my mom was re-organizing her purse during one of the pivotal scenes should give you a sense of our collective reaction. It isn't even close to "Blair Witch," which mildly frightened me because I lived near a wooded area at the time.'

I could not disagree more. Paranormal activity scared the heck out of me, probably more than any other film. Blair Witch was not in the same league FOR ME. Why?

Fear is personal and global. There are proven, common, human fear reactions - we all react chemically when we observe fear on someone elses face. Yet I'm afraid of spiders and you perhaps are not. This means some themed films such as Arachnophobia aren't in the least scary for some and almost traumatic for others.

So we know there are personal phobias, global human fears but the bogger above identifies a 3rd and important point (without realising it!) She said:

"Blair Witch," which mildly frightened me because I lived near a wooded area at the time.

Empathy. The writer was afraid for the actors because she had experienced this herself. It was an easy way for her to empathise. She had direct experience of a similar situation, in this case a wooded environment. I would argue this is the biggest factor in any horror movie. Empathy. Someone with no empathy for others will rarely be scared because they develop no relationship with the characters, no involvement in the situation, and so feel no threat.

Highly empathic people I know re hardly able to watch horror at all. Nearly everything frightens them. Yet in real life, outside of the movie theatre, they are no more or less scared than anyone else. Why? I put this down to an inability to do something.

If you empathise for the characters, worry about them, and then cannot act to help them, there is a double whammy of emotions hitting you. In real life the empath would pick up a person who had fallen, but in the movie theatre they cannot. It hurts them. But it gets worse. Most horror movies the people on screen fight for their lives. They battle the horror and so we can root for them, we can release emotions as we ride the roller coaster with them. Paranormal activity does not allow this release. Why? The people are sleeping when the horror happens. They cannot fight back, they are helpless, we are helpless, the empath is trapped.

So, an empathic person will find Paranormal Activity a triple hit. The non-empathic is likely to find it boring. Thats why the film splits people into two groups and why the film is simultaneously the scariest film of all time and also the most boring horror movie ever.

Pauls article on what you can't say in society is a worthy read for any armchair philospher. A snippet to whet the appetite:

Let's start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?

If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you're supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn't. Odds are you just think whatever you're told.

09/16/2010

Never ask the Internet anything you need an answer for. Let me illustrate:

Question: "How does Google make money?"

Answers:

First!!!!!!!!!

the firsty, nothing to contribute, he hangs out refreshing his browser for a buzz

www.google.com

The knowledge snob. He posts a link that may or may not answer your question but he wont condescend to actual human greetings. He clearly knows way more than you as he knows a url. Maybe two.

Have you tried Googling it :-)

The joker. No useful information but he thinks his humour will compensate.

Buy Google t-shirts here!

The spammer. May not be human. Keywords are fun.

Google ... er...dunno really :-) but I read somewhere they make donuts sorta like the Os in their name like. I think they sell them and thats how they makes money. But I'm not sure, let me know if you find out.

FIX: Put a pull up wall between each pair of seats that people can lean on. better yet, shape it so it has an arm rest. Now you can lean, get privacy, sleep and rest your arms avoiding back pain. No more elbow wrestling with the jerk next to you and no more frakkin newspapers in your face. Its pull up so it can be lowered in emergencies of course.

2. Security Queues. The insanity of queuing for an hour at security happens now.

FIX: make the exit part bigger and move peoples stuff quickly away so while they put on their shoe, belts, string vests, the next person can go through. Now have a special queue for INFREQUENT flyers. This is a queue for people who simply don't fly more than once or twice a year and don't know all the new rules. Put some helpers on this line and explain things to them BEFORE they reach the front. That way people who fly a lot don't get stuck in a queue with someone saying "I cant bring this bag of toiletries on board?" every five minutes.

3. Run, sweat, sweat, wait , wait , wait. You run for the plane knowing its 3 minutes ot boarding and arrive stressed, dripping in sweat and looking like you are about to have a heart attack.Then the plane is delayed 30 minutes.

FIX: Have screens at security announcing delays on planes. It will reduce stress at security, allow gentle strolls instead of mad dashes and keep people cool and happy.

4. Boarding takes too long.

FIX: Board by strict row number. A large board outside the boarding area where you take your position in the queue, next to the board, before boarding will mean people enter the plane in the right order (back to front). If you are out of position, you are sent back.

5. WE dont all eat/like cheese!

FIX: For goodness sake have alternatives for food - serving just cheese sandwiches (thank you LOT airlines) or serving ham sandwiches with cheesey bread (thank you LUFTHANSA) is just bad- even bloody crisps would do. They are light so no fuel worries.

09/08/2010

My cat died about 6 months ago. So it was a surprise when he came into the room this morning.

"Don't worry," he said, sensing my surprise, "I'm not staying, its just a quick visit." He glanced furtively from side to side, and lowered his voice. "Listen, I just came back to tell you something. Confession you see."

"Yes, I see," I added lamely.

"Well, anyway, you know all those times you didn't do your homework and you blamed the dog for eating it?"

"Yes."

"It was me."

"You? You ate my homework?"

"Yes. Just thought you should know." He turned to leave rather abruptly and headed out the door. At the last moment he turned his head and added "But don't try to tell anyone, they'll never believe 'the cat ate my homework'."

You are an ordering of energy. A collection of atoms, held together and constantly fed. Your garden is not a thing of nature - it is an affront to nature (ask Alan Titchmarsh). All the stuff you have is manufactured and designed into an ordered machine or structure. Life is an attempt to make order from the chaos out there and make it be in your (and sometimes others) favour.

Chaos - the natural reduced state of energy in the universe, a dull grey, background radiation of unuseable energy, tending on average to a temperature of absolute zero.

You - an ordered set of energy in useable forms, surrounded by more ordered energy in useable forms.

The immutable second law of thermodynamics is, simply put: you are screwed. The universe may not be capable of hating you , but you are not in any way, its natural state. You are the mathematical possibility, so improbable that we short-hand it as "impossible". You are a speck of ordered energy in the vastness of chaos. It won't last. It never does. Entropy will win out. Life is a struggle, the universe "hates" us all. Stuff will break and your garden will be overrun by weeds

So have a nice cup of brownian motion and try not to worry too much about it.